Top Science News

July 20, 2026

Top Headlines

Scientists Detect Hidden Skin Damage Before It Becomes Visible

July 20, 2026 Scientists have discovered a hidden warning sign of skin damage that appears before collagen fibers visibly thin, break, or lose their connections. Using advanced light-based techniques, the team found that collagen’s carefully organized molecular ...

Some Dinosaurs Could Rise Like Giants Until They Grew Too Big

July 20, 2026 Two elephant-sized South American sauropods were unusually well built for standing on their hind legs. Digital tests showed that their robust femurs handled the enormous forces better than those of larger species, especially while the dinosaurs were ...

Earth’s Waters Are Quietly Running Out of Oxygen, Scientists Warn

July 20, 2026 Oxygen is disappearing from oceans, lakes, rivers, and coastal waters at an alarming rate, threatening aquatic life and weakening the natural processes that help regulate Earth’s climate. Scientists warn that this widespread deoxygenation is ...

Alzheimer’s Breakthrough: Scientists Restore Two Hours of Sleep Without Clearing Brain Plaques

July 20, 2026 Researchers have uncovered a surprising culprit behind sleep loss in Alzheimer’s disease: the brain’s own immune cells. In mice with amyloid plaques, overactive microglia triggered inflammation ...

An Ordinary Laptop Solved a Problem Thought to Require a Quantum Computer

July 20, 2026 A quantum problem once described as impossible for classical computers has now been solved using relatively modest hardware. Researchers used tensor networks to compress the overwhelming wave function created by hundreds of entangled qubits, ...

Scientists Discover a Protein That Protects the Brain from Alzheimer’s Damage

July 20, 2026 A protein called SORLA may act as a powerful defense against the toxic tau tangles involved in Alzheimer’s disease. Mice with extra SORLA had less tau accumulation, less brain atrophy, and ...

UCLA Scientists Develop Mineral Sunscreen Without the Chalky White Cast

July 19, 2026 Scientists have redesigned zinc oxide particles to create a mineral sunscreen that protects against ultraviolet radiation without leaving such a noticeable white cast. The SPF 30 formula could make sunscreen easier and more appealing to use across a ...

Scientists Found Two Powerful New Ways to Destroy Forever Chemicals

July 19, 2026 Scientists are testing two promising ways to destroy PFAS, the stubborn “forever chemicals” that can accumulate in water and resist normal treatment. One method uses collapsing vapor bubbles to generate extreme heat and reactive molecules, while ...

New AI Blood Test Predicts Heart Disease 15 Years Early

July 19, 2026 A new AI-powered blood test could give people a remarkably early warning of serious heart and circulation problems. Developed by researchers at the University of Hong Kong, CardiOmicScore analyzes thousands of proteins and metabolites to estimate ...

A Tiny Universe in a Bottle Reveals Clues to the Origins of Life

July 19, 2026 Researchers have created cosmic dust from scratch by recreating space-like conditions inside glass tubes. The dust contains complex carbon-rich molecules built from elements essential to life and produces infrared signals similar to real material ...

The Mysterious Hum Heard Around the World May Finally Have an Explanation

July 19, 2026 The mysterious sound known as The Hum has been reported worldwide for decades, yet its source often remains impossible to find. Researchers tested whether people who hear it have exceptional low-frequency hearing or measurable sounds produced inside ...

Coffee May Help the Body Fight Stress and Aging Through a Hidden Cellular Switch

July 19, 2026 Scientists may have uncovered one reason coffee is repeatedly associated with healthier aging and lower disease risk. Compounds in coffee appear to activate NR4A1, a receptor that helps protect cells ...

Latest Headlines

updated 9:39am EDT

Scientists Just Discovered a Lost Branch of Australia’s Marsupials

July 19, 2026 Fossils from Queensland suggest a newly recognized marsupial order may have survived in Australia for around 35 million years, rewriting part of the story of how the continent's unique mammals ...

Scientists Identify the Rare Meteorite That Killed the Dinosaurs 66 Million Years Ago

July 19, 2026 The asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs was likely an exceptionally rare CO chondrite from a distant region of the solar system. Its unusual ...

Common Antidepressant May Ease Long COVID’s Crushing Fatigue

July 18, 2026 A low-cost antidepressant may offer new hope for people struggling with long COVID fatigue. In a randomized clinical trial involving 399 adults, fluvoxamine significantly reduced fatigue and improved ...

July 18, 2026 Several popular sugar substitutes may not be as harmless as they seem. Adults who consumed the most artificial sweeteners showed substantially faster declines in memory and thinking, especially if ...

They Were Drilling Off Oregon. What They Found Could Shake the Entire West Coast

July 18, 2026 Scientists have found evidence that a major Cascadia earthquake could trigger a second quake on the San Andreas Fault. The discovery came from ...

A Shattered Asteroid May Have Bombarded Earth 800 Million Years Ago

July 18, 2026 A catastrophic asteroid breakup may have triggered a huge wave of impacts across the inner solar system about 800 million years ago. The debris was launched from near a gravitational gateway ...

Earth’s Biggest Volcanic Event Transformed an Entire Oceanic Plate

July 18, 2026 Seismic waves have revealed that the oceanic plate beneath the Ontong Java Plateau was dramatically transformed by the colossal volcanic activity that created it more than 100 million years ago. ...

NASA’s James Webb Catches a Supermassive Black Hole Feeding

July 17, 2026 JWST has captured unusually detailed images of gas feeding the supermassive black hole at the center of NGC 4696. A vast filament appears to funnel material into an 800-light-year-wide spinning disk, ...

Terraforming Mars May Be More Realistic Than Scientists Once Thought

July 17, 2026 Scientists say new technologies have reopened the debate over whether Mars could someday be terraformed, turning a once impossible idea into a serious research topic. Before anyone tries to reshape ...

“Silly Sprinklers” Help Scientists Finally Solve Feynman’s Famous Sprinkler Mystery

July 17, 2026 A team of mathematicians used whimsical "silly sprinklers" to solve a physics mystery that has puzzled scientists for decades. Their experiments ...

This Ancient Sea Worm Has “bio-Metal” Jaws Unlike Anything Scientists Have Seen

July 16, 2026 An ancient sea worm may hold the secret to a whole new category of natural materials. Its jaws combine proteins and metal ions in a way that gives them metal-like strength and unusual mechanical ...

This Pet Gecko Could Help Scientists Unlock the Secrets of Cancer

July 15, 2026 An unusual leopard gecko that naturally develops aggressive tumors may become an important new model for cancer research. Scientists found its tumors share key genetic changes with human cancers, ...

Scientists Finally Solved Why Some Frogs Survive a Deadly Fungus

July 14, 2026 A deadly fungus has wiped out amphibian populations around the globe, yet some mysteriously recover. Researchers discovered that survivors develop powerful immune defenses while they are still ...

Quantum Breakthrough Links Light and Magnetism in Atomically Thin Materials

July 16, 2026 A new review highlights exciting progress in atomically thin quantum materials where light and magnetism work together in ways never before possible. In these materials, light-generated excitons can ...

Astronomers Just Found Four Hidden White Dwarf Stars Near Earth

July 15, 2026 Four nearby white dwarf stars have been discovered hiding in plain sight beside brighter red dwarf companions. Hubble's ultraviolet observations finally revealed the long-hidden stellar ...

Scientists Finally Solved the Mystery of Earth's Greatest Mass Extinction

July 12, 2026 Why do beaches today have seashells from clams and snails instead of brachiopods? A new study suggests the answer lies in Earth's greatest mass extinction, when warming oceans and falling oxygen ...

Physicists Recreate Black Hole Energy Extraction in the Lab

July 12, 2026 Researchers have recreated the physics of extracting energy from a spinning black hole using a stationary device that produces synthetic ultrafast rotation. The achievement transforms a long-standing ...

New Alzheimer's Drug Repairs DNA Damage and Reduces Brain Inflammation

July 17, 2026 A drug originally developed for spinal cord injury may offer a fresh approach to treating Alzheimer’s disease. In mouse studies, KCL-286 repaired dangerous DNA damage, reduced inflammation, and ...

Incredible New Material Makes Heat Programmable

July 7, 2026 A newly developed material can control and "program" heat, allowing it to direct thermal radiation, switch modes, and remember its settings without continuous power. The innovation could ...

These Ancient Quasars Shouldn't Exist So Soon After the Big Bang

July 7, 2026 Astronomers have uncovered 31 of the oldest known quasars, including the two earliest ever detected, shining from a time when the universe was only about 670 million years old. Powered by ...

Scientists Used AI to Crack One of Water's Biggest Mysteries

July 8, 2026 Water’s odd behavior becomes even more dramatic when it is supercooled, but scientists have struggled to compare the many different ways of describing its microscopic structure. Researchers at the ...

NASA's Hubble Spots a Stellar Sparkler for the Fourth of July

July 5, 2026 NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has captured a spectacular red, white, and blue view of one of the Milky Way's oldest star clusters to celebrate the nation's 250th anniversary. Hidden ...

NASA's Hubble Captures a Crimson Stellar Nursery Sparkling With Blue and White Stars

July 5, 2026 Hubble has captured a spectacular view of LH 95, where about 2,500 young stars are still on their journey to becoming full-fledged stars. Scientists discovered these growing stars can keep pulling in ...

NASA's Hubble Captures a Star-Spangled Sea of 500,000 Stars

July 4, 2026 Celebrating the United States' 250th anniversary, NASA released a stunning Hubble portrait of Messier 3, an ancient globular cluster with more than 500,000 stars. The remarkable cluster is ...

Stephen Hawking's Black Hole Laws Just Got a Major Upgrade

July 13, 2026 Scientists have developed a new framework that could finally apply the laws of thermodynamics to real, ever-changing black holes instead of only perfectly stable ones. The advance may improve our ...

New Research Reveals the Hidden Pollution Left Behind by Fireworks

July 3, 2026 Scientists have uncovered new evidence that fireworks can pollute both the air and water in ways that extend beyond the visible smoke. The findings show that leftover debris, fine particles, and ...

Scientists Finally Crack Nature's Secret for Building Better Cancer Drugs

July 8, 2026 Researchers have cracked the code behind bacteria's ability to naturally manufacture multiple versions of powerful anti-cancer drugs. The discovery could make it much easier to engineer new ...

NASA Selects Four New Moon Missions to Build a Permanent Lunar Base

July 14, 2026 NASA is ramping up its lunar ambitions by awarding nearly $600 million for four commercial Moon landings planned for late 2028. Each mission will carry the same trio of science instruments to improve ...

NASA Celebrates America's 250th Birthday With Incredible Views of Space

July 4, 2026 NASA is marking the United States' 250th birthday with four striking red, white, and blue images of deep space from the Chandra X-ray Observatory. The collection features an exploded star, a ...

Scientists Say Creatine May Help Fight Depression

June 30, 2026 Creatine is best known as a muscle-building supplement, but scientists are now investigating whether it could also help treat depression by boosting the brain's energy supply. A new review ...